Mary+Gresky

Mary Gresky took ill, dying of blood poisoning on September 20, 1922, from a criminal abortion performed with some sort of instrument on September 16 in Ohio.

On her deathbed, she named Mary Vargo as the perpetrator who used some sort of instrument on her.

Mary Vargo was found guilty of criminal malpractice, but won an appeal on the grounds of of improper instructions to the jury, irregularities of the admission of the deathbed statement, and failure to prove that the abortion had been part of a prior pattern of criminal activity by Mary Vargo.

I have been unable to determine Mary Vargo's profession.

Keep in mind that things that things we take for granted, like antibiotics and blood banks, were still in the future. For more about abortion in this era, see [|Abortion in the 1920s].

 For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion] Source:


 * 1923 WL 1879 (Ohio App. 7 Dist.), 1 Ohio Law Abs. 830, Vargo v State

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